At Bozar, you have the chance to present your work in three different projects. What is the common thread in your work?  

You can only work within your own grammar and language. And in my case, it's about exploring the limits of what I can do and trying to grow. With collaborations, I have the impression I can always learn something, I can grow. I'm not yet finished and I'm not as good as I want to be yet. What these projects have in common, I think, is a very personal approach based on my own life and memories.   

Would you say your work is more about memories or is it also about sonic exploration?   

It's both. There are always people saying that there's quite a romantic side in my music. And that's true. At the same time, I also take a very scientific approach. I try to keep both of these going together. Not forgetting about the emotional side of music, which is important to me - that's why I love some pop and classical music. But at the same time, I'm very interested in technology and where it can take me. Now we’re having all these discussions about artificial intelligence, and that fascinates me. I’m not against it. I’m just waiting to find out what it can do for me. 

Wouldn’t you be afraid of losing yourself in a way with this technology? 

No, I don't think so.   

Speaking of this novel technology and with the 25th anniversary of Endless Summer in mind, it makes us wonder if you are nostalgic for 2001.   

It is a nostalgic project, certainly. I did the same thing with my Venice album from 2004 for the Venice Biennale just a few weeks back. And doing this, preparing this work, was like a journey through the past. And that's not always nice. So it's going to be the same with the Endless Summer project in Bozar.  

Will the album be filtered through time? Have you developed new approaches over the years?  

Maybe. I still don't know if I should just present the old album as it is or if I should at least give it a nudge here and there, pointing it in a new direction. I think during the process of doing the work, I will find out.   

Does the material still feel familiar after all these years?   

Some of it doesn’t exist any more. (laughs) Some of the recordings are gone, and some are not really playable, like the first track of Endless Summer. That was an improvised thing that I did with a Max/MSP patch. It's a nylon string acoustic guitar going into that patch. I still have a nylon string guitar, but I don't have that patch anymore. So I’ll have to find ways to reproduce it.  

That’s interesting. The album is not that old, compared to an old document with lacunae, but here there’s also something missing, there’s an opening.  

Exactly, that's the problem here. I'm still working on it, and I haven't really yet found my way through it. 

Would you say the album was a kind of breakthrough for you artistically? Or are there other projects that were also important or even more significant?   

Artistically, it was already the first album, Hotel Paral.lel, where I thought, OK, this is the way I want to keep on going, you know. But when I made Endless Summer, I was aware that this was more like pop music than everything else I’d done so far, and it would probably get a broader audience. It's not that I was expecting it, but I was aware it could happen, and it actually happened, big time! It was a breakthrough, yeah.   

You will present it with the artist Lillevan. How did this collaboration come about?   

Lillevan and I have performed together many times over the decades. I really love his visual language a lot. He's a video artist and he's a good improviser too. I do stuff on stage in real time, composing in real time, and he does the same with a video patch. And he knows Endless Summer very well. We’ve played many tracks together, but not the whole album. 

Ryuichi Sakamoto, Mike Patton, David Sylvian, Mark Linkous, ... You have worked with many outstanding musicians. Your collaboration with Jim O'Rourke goes back 30 years. How come this collaboration doesn’t have an expiry date? 

Well, I met Jim a long time ago, in the 90s, and we had this group with Peter Rehberg, who sadly passed away in 2021. It was called Fenn O’Berg. We toured with the group many times in the 90s in Europe and in Japan, because Tim has lived in Tokyo since 2005, after he stopped playing with Sonic Youth. 

What do you think are his greatest qualities as a musician?   

Jim is an old friend and a great musician, one of the people I admire the most. He can do anything, actually. He can play any style and any instrument. He's like a Renaissance man. I can tell when he has produced a record, or even when he has mixed it. It’s always very subtle and refined. He's one of the greatest for me, and I'm so happy I can play with him again after so many years. The last time we played together was actually in Japan maybe 12 years ago.   

What does a day in the studio look like for you two? 

It's like children playing together, really. Someone’s got an idea, the other one's playing around with it, and then the other one puts something on top of it, you know. And suddenly we’ve got something to work on. 

What can we expect at the gig with O'Rourke? Songs from It's Hard For Me To Say I'm Sorry, old material from the Fenn O'Berg era or new creations?  

It's going to be brand new. Although we don't know yet what exactly it will be because most of the work we do is based on improvisation. It's a special kind of improvisation with Jim - it's like one of us plays a theme or half-written song and the other reacts to it. Almost like composing together on stage. So, it’s very different from free jazz improvisation. There's no call and response: instead, we’re creating something in realtime. 

Let’s talk about your project on 26 February, when you’ll present your latest solo record Mosaic (2024). On this album, the guitar seems to come back to the foreground more physically and audibly. Was this intentional? It has always been an anchor point right?    

Occasionally, it was intentional, yes. When I was working on this album I tried not to have too many options in the studio, because if I do, I end up losing myself. So I focused on the guitar, on a few software synths and effects.  

When I play it live, I care more about the live sound than with earlier albums because it has to sound really big and there's a lot of space in it. So I'm looking forward to presenting it in the new Hall M at Bozar. I could play Endless Summer or the earlier material very loud in a punk club and it would work somehow. But Mosaic won’t. There has to be a good sound system. 

I have the feeling that ambient is everywhere right now. It’s pretty much omnipresent. Do you have the feeling that you have to share the scene with others more than you used to? 

I’ve always been in between somewhere; I’ve played with so many musicians from so many genres. For me, nothing has changed. Also, ambient is just a word. As I see things, I’m a guitar player and a computer player. Or a synthesizer player, whatever. But people need categories, I understand. I’m happy that people are getting more or more into this kind of field. Because I think there’s still a lot to explore. 

As you said, you’re keeping up with the newest evolutions in computer music. 

I’m not finished. I’m still curious.